ac lab system - analytical.unsw.edu.au · tracker shows the escaped time at the tracking page....

AC Lab System

Usage Tracker v1.0.31

User Guide

Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre Yan (Frank) Li & Dong Zheng

ACLS Usage Tracker v1.0.28

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DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITIES University of New South Wales, (“UNSW”) RESERVES ALL RIGHTS IN THE PROGRAM AS DELIVERED. THE PROGRAM OR ANY PORTION THEREOF MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WHATSOEVER EXCEPT AS PROVIDED BY LICENSE, WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF UNSW. A LICENSE UNDER EPRI'S RIGHTS IN THE PROGRAM CAN BE OBTAINED DIRECTLY FROM UNSW. THE EMBODIMENTS OF THIS PROGRAM AND SUPPORTING MATERIALS MAY BE INDEPENDENTLY AVAILABLE FROM MARK WAINWRIGHT ANALYTICAL CENTRE (MWAC) FOR AN APPROPRIATE DISTRIBUTION FEE.

MARK WAINWRIGHT ANALYTICAL CENTRE (MWAC) MEZZANINE FLOOR,

CHEMICAL SCIENSES BUILDING, HIGH ST, SYDNEY NSW 2052

THIS NOTICE MAY NOT BE REMOVED FROM THE PROGRAM BY ANY USER THEREOF. NEITHER UNSW, ANY MEMBER OF UNSW, THE ORGANIZATION(S) BELOW, NOR ANY PERSON ACTING ON BEHALF OF ANY OF THEM: 1. MAKES ANY WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION WHATSOEVER, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS OF ANY PURPOSE WITH RESPECT TO THE PROGRAM; OR 2. ASSUMES ANY LIABILITY WHATSOEVER WITH RESPECT TO ANY USE OF THE PROGRAM OR ANY PORTION THEREOF OR WITH RESPECT TO ANY DAMAGES WHICH MAY RESULT FROM SUCH USE. NOTE For further information about the Software, call the MWAC IT at +61 (0)2 9385 6680 or e-mail [email protected]. Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre, MWAC, is part of the Division of Research of University of New South Wales Copyright © 2015, University of New South Wales. All rights reserved.


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SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION

ACLS Usage Tracker is a cross-platform software client written in Java to record user’s

usage of the instruments, to restrict instrument access, to alert any OHS related issues in

lab to the lab staff through the email and the coming iPhone app, and to show the next

booking or the current day booking calendar (coming soon).

Description

The tracker is able to run on Windows XP/7/8, Windows Server 2003/2008/2012,

MacOS, Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Redhat by installing the latest version of Java

Runtime (JRE) providing multiple functions.

Platform Requirement

Java Runtime (JRE) 1.8.0_45+

Windows XP (SP3), Windows 7, Windows 8(UAC off, run with admin privilege)

Linux/Unix/MacOS with GUI installed


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1. Working Mechanism of Tracker with ACLS Server

Through the tracker, you can implement a secured access to instrument or

equipment by “No Login, No Operation” policy.

Before user can operate the facility (instrument or equipment), he needs to login

through the tracker. The tracker checks if user has a valid account, if user has the

valid certificate to operate the equipment by himself or require the supervision of the

staff member before permitting. During the period of operation or experiment, user

can record the experimental notes, see the next booking to better manager his time

of operation, and receive the notification sent by staff.

2. Tracker Operation

‐ Login process

Upon executing the tracker program, home page shows up as illustrated below.

Home page indicates the following information:

‐ Version

‐ HostID

‐ Facility Name

ACLS Server

Equipment #1

Equipment #3

Equipment #2

Login/Logout Account Entry Note Entry


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‐ Next Booking Information

‐ Connectivity Status

‐ Login Button

‐ Information Page

Moving the mouse over the Status bar for two seconds, it shows up additional tips.

Click the ‘Login’ button to access login page.

‐ Enter your login name and password and click ‘Continue’.


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‐ Depending on the lab requirements, staff login may be required for onsite

supervision. Staff enters login name and password and click ‘Continue’.

Select your account/project from the drop-down menu, and click ‘Continue’.


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Upon accepting the login, Tracker stays at the top corner of the right-hand side

of the screen.

Tracker shows the escaped time at the tracking page. Moving mouse over to each

field can bring up the full length of the field information.

‐ Logout Timer (Optional)


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A logout timer can be activated to logout the tracker automatically when timer

runs out of the pre-set time by users. It is designed to give the option control to

the labs where facility (instrument or equipment) operation may need to end at

midnight without the human interference.

You can enable the countdown timer by clicking the ‘Timer’ button.

Enter the desired duration (1-99 hours), and click ‘OK to begin the countdown.

Tracker logs out user automatically when countdown ends.


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To stop timer, simply click on ‘Reset’ on ‘Set Timer’ page.

‐ Record Notes

You can record and submit notes during an experiment by clicking the ‘Note’

button.

Enter your experiment notes in the textbox provided, and click ‘Submit’ to save

the notes.


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The user can make simple notes by clicking the note button. Once the submit

button is clicked the note will be submitted to the server and displayed in tracker

notes display list. If the field is empty, nothing will be submitted to the server

nor displayed in the list.


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‐ Logging Out

Once you are finished using the instrument, click the ‘Logout’ button to

terminate the session.

‐ Help

By clicking ‘Help’, a quick help is available to the users as shown below.


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3. Local Logs

A local log can be generated if system admin enables the local log records. The

benefit for the local log is to validate the possible loss of logout log due to the

computer reboot.


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Normal Login: 1. Username: Logged in at [DATE TIME] Normal logout: 1. Username: logged out at [DATE TIME] 2. logged out at [DATE TIME] by AutoLogout 3. Forced logged out at [DATE TIME] by AutoLogout Abnormal logout: 1. Authentication failed at DATE 2. Certificate check failed at

4. Tracker Configuration File

‐ Default settings:

The configuration file is named as “settings.conf” in the same directory as the

executable jar file. The first line maintains the last edit date for the configuration file.

Parameters definitions:

‐ Remote_Hompage

The home page displays this URL HTTM page (Only when “Local_Homepage”

is set to “NO”)


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‐ Local_Homepage

If it is set to ON, home page of the tracker reads the local ‘tracker.html’ where it

is located at the same directory where the executable jar file is.

‐ Server_IP_Address

This is the IP Address of ACLS Logon Server.

‐ HostID

This can be set manually by maximal 12 digits combined with letters and

numbers. If leave this field null, when tracker starts to run, it automatically

generates a random HostID and rewrite the conf file.

‐ Local_Log

When is set to “YES”, login logs are kept in “logs” directory with current date as

the file name.

‐ DisableWinHotkey

When is set to YES, Tracker disables “Ctrl+ESC”, “Alt+ESC”, “Alt+Tab”, and

“Windows Key”.

‐ DisableTaskMgr


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When is set to “Yes”, the Tracker prevents users from accessing Windows Task

Manager so they are not able to kill any processes. This operation take effect

over the time till the tracker process is terminated.

InactivityCheck=yes (yes: function on; no: function off)

By turning on this parameter to yes, user’s inactivity gets checked in real-time.

InactivityTimer=1 (in Minute)

When InactivityCheck=yes, after InactivityTimer minutes, tracker automatically

gets logged out.

5. Tracker Installation

Please take the following steps to install the tracker:

Double-click the installer file ‘aclstracker.exe’ to initiate the installation

Java is pre-bundled in the installer and you are prompted to install Java JRE


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Follow the prompts during the tracker installation, specifying installation

location. Recommended that you should remain the default settings.


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Upon the completion of installation, ACLS Tracker shortcut is created on the

desktop.

6. Working Mechanism of Data Drive Connection through Tracker

ACLS Server Data Server

Equipment

Login/Logout Account Entry Note Entry

Connection Disconnection


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To establish dynamic network data drive connection, you need to set up a data server

to store and share experiment data to users. A single Windows share folder set up is

sufficient on data server. Upon tracker login by user, tracker communicates with

ACLS server to obtain full authentication information to make network data

connection, upon logout, disconnect the network drive.

By doing so, you are capable of resetting network drive connection password

regularly for security measures.

‐ Process of network drive connection:

o Tracker login

o Tracker request for network drive settings

o Tracker connect to network work drive according to the settings in

ACLS, for example, drive “M”, IP of the data server, etc.

o Upon the successful connection, tracker rename the map drive using the

name defined in the settings in ACLS system

o Tracker logout

o Tracker disconnect the network drive

7. Network Drive Connection

To show how this works, case studies are presented as it is more than ACLS to make

this work.

Case #1: Set up network shared folder in Data Server

Assuming that you have a Windows data server or computer with IP address

“10.1.1.1’, two local drives are available C and D. On D Drive, create a folder named


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“results”, and then set up sharing to this folder over network. You add password

protection to this shared folder “results”, for example, abcdefg, and user name as

“mydata”.

So when you connect or map to this shared folder on other computers, you need the

following information:

o Folder destination: \\10.1.1.1\results

o User name: mydata

o Password: abcdefg

Case #2: Set up network shared folder

Continuing with Case #1, now you need to configure ACLS to network drive

through the web interface.

The following checks and set up are required upon logon to ACLS web interface:

o “System Settings” -> “Configure System”: To turn on “DataStorageCtrl”

parameter

o “System Settings” -> “Link & Directory Manager”:

o Net Drive Setting: You need to define the following parameters for tracker to

connect the network drive as following:


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Drive: telling tracker what drive label used for connection, don’t use C to G

as most of Windows computers may take them for local drives.

Folder: as protocol of network drive mapping, you should set out the full

path as standard

User Name: authentication of connection

Password: authentication of connection

Per Facility: this is optional, you can set up individual folder connection to

each individual equipment or facility listed in ‘Facility FTP Access Directory’.

Case #3: Set up individual network shared folder to each facility

Continuing with Case #2, go to ‘Facility FTP Access Directory’ to set up individual

facility folder connection. The individual facility folder setup is optional depending

on your choices. For example, instead of saving data to the root directory, such as

\\129.94.150.15\emunit, you can further set up each individual facility folder to

make future data sharing and archiving clear and easy, such as

\\129.94.150.15\images\afm.

Here is an example of setup:


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ACLS takes “Physical Directory” setting and keeps “afm” for example to conjunct

with \\129.94.150.15\emunit set out in ‘Net Drive Setting’.

Case #4: Set up individual user folder in the network shared folder

Continuing with Case #2, through ACLS, you can set up auto-added user folder

feature so that you can save results or datasets to their own data folder on the

connected network drive.

To achieve this, you need to map the same drive to ACLS server, and establish the

same settings to ‘Physical Directory’ as Case #3. When receiving the request from

tracker, ACLS server adds user folder with his login name. Upon logout at tracker by

user, server also checks if folder is empty. If so, then the folder is removed.

The obvious benefit is that you can easily run archive of data to those inactive user

folders. So just keep those active user folders to reduce the storage space. Please

contact us for further inquiry if you wish to.


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8. Frequent Asked Questions

Question:

When the user logins to the tracker, the tracker always show ‘certifcate not valid!’?

However, the certificate is valid to the user.

Answer:

This is caused by the ‘&’ character included in the account name. & is reserved

keyword by the tracker. So no & shall be used in the account name or project name

if you wish to use the tracker.

Question:

What is the local html for in the configuration file?

Answer:

Tracker can load the html page either local one or through URL. However, due to

the limit of the display, direct URL may not show up the web page properly. You

can use the iframe tag in the local tracker.html to embed the external web page. This

is useful to display instrument information web page or OHS related information.

Question:

Can I change the default ‘AC Lab System’ to the lab name?

Answer:

Yes. Edit the tracker.html to make the changes as you wish.

Question:

Tracker can’t connect to the ACLS server, why?

Answer:

There are a number of causes for that as followings:

o Loss of network

o ACLS server down


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o ACLS server reject tracker request due to the wrong server IP or Host

ID setting in tracker configuration file

o Firewall of network

Tracker has a built-in feature to detect connection with ACLS server all the time. If

connection fails, tracker activates program zone to allow users to continue the

operation. And also turn on ‘Control Panel’ to allow staff access by using System

Password.

Question:

Why does tracker bring up ‘Staff Login Page’ upon user login?

Answer:

If you set the training certificate requiring onsite assistance, the staff login is needed

to ensure the user is under supervision of the staff to access the operation of facility.

This applies to those users under training certificates that won’t be able or allowed to

perform the experiment by them alone.

Question:

Why does tracker popup “I/O 103” error message?

Answer:

Tracker needs to run on administrator account. So you need to set the operation

Windows logon account as administrator account.

Question:

Are there any local log files for the tracker so that we are able to track down the

operation in case of network loss?

Answer:

Yes, you can go to c:\program files\acls usage tracker\logs to retrieve the logs. The

log is created each day and updated every 5 minutes. For example, user logs in, and


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fails to logout properly due to the network loss. Then log file provides the user

login/logout information as backup.

Question:

What is the next booking shown on Tracker?

Answer:

The tracker updates the next booking field every 10 minutes. With next booking

information, the user is at a better position to know when he should end the

operation to get the facility (instrument or equipment) available to next user.

Question:

How ACLS server identifies the tracker on different facilities (instrument or

equipment)?

Answer:

ACLS uses two types of ID as the facility ID:

‐ IP address: network IP address of facility computer

‐ Host ID: unique host ID generated by the tracker. The advantage of Host ID is

obviously as it is not affected by IP address change due to the network settings,

such as DHCP, proxy server, gateway, etc.


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Question:

How does next booking display work?

Answer:

Next booking refers to the booking made at the next hour. The tracker updates the

next booking every 15 minutes.

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